@paul-leggett said
Hi all,

I recently played in the Space Coast Open in Cocoa Beach Florida USA. It is an annual event orchestrated by the Space Coast Chess Foundation, which is a bunch of former and current NASA Rocket Scientists who also love chess.

It's at a hotel on the Beach, and my wife and daughters "force" me to play in it because they love the beach.

I have been playin ...[text shortened]... d8 16. exd5 Nxe5 17. Re1 Nxf3+ 18. Qxf3 e5 19. d6 Qd7 20. Rxe5+ Bxe5 21. Bxe5
O-O 22. Qf6 1-0[/pgn]

Way to go Paul!!!

@eladar said
@Paul-Leggett

I really did not understand that pawn move. After looking at the result I am guessing you felt one of two things would happen...

Black would take opening the file or if left would cramp black's position, attacking the square directly in front of the king. It also opened the diagonal for your queen or bishop, which was my original thought but then figured that was not too helpful.

The pawn move is the prelude to a combination on the Black e5 pawn. I needed to distract or otherwise remove a defender to open up the center to get at the Black king.
I had to annotate the game for the newsletter, and here are the notes right before 19. d6:

"A tactical evaluation is in order.

1) The Black King is in the center of the board.
2) The e5 pawn is pinned to the King for at least one more move.
3) The e5 pawn has two attackers and two defenders, but one defender is the Black Queen, and Queens are poor defenders- it's easy to nudge them away with inferior pieces.
4) The d4 pawn blocks the long light diagonal, but it can move, and do so with tempo.
5) If the d4 pawn was absent, White could seize the d-file, because he has 3 pieces covering d1."

I should add that 19. … Qd6 is strongly answered by 20. Rad1, when Black gets blown away in the center, and 19. … Rxe6 is answered by 20. Bxe6 Bxe6 21. Rxe6 with another blown away center.

Here are the notes I wrote for the game. I have little confidence that I could make the pgn viewer work, so I took out all the notes when I made the original post.

[Event "26th Space Coast "]
[Site "B. Section"]
[Date "2019.05.01"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Paul Leggett"]
[Black "Janusz Gromnicki"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "D00"]
[WhiteElo "1754"]
[BlackElo "1625"]
[Annotator "Leggett,Paul"]
[PlyCount "43"]
[SourceVersionDate "2019.02.03"]

1. d4 e6 2. g3 d5 3. Bg2 b6 4. Nf3 c5 5. O-O Nc6 6. c3 {For those who consider
a move like this to be dubious, see Nakamura-Gareyev, US Ch 2019, annotated on
p. 17 of NIC 2019 #3. I am certainly no Nakamura, but sometimes you just want
to play the game on terms favorable to you as a person, not an engine.} (6. c4
$16 {is clearly objectively better.}) 6... Ba6 {[#] At this point, I noticed
that Black's two developed pieces were both loose/hanging, and that he had yet
to develop his kingside at all. I decided to try to pose problems for my
opponent, attempting to win the tempo battle and keep his king in the center.}
7. Qa4 Qc8 {Relatively best.} 8. Ne5 $5 (8. dxc5 Bxc5 9. b4 $14) 8... b5 {
Blocking the bishop. It was unclear to me if that would matter, so I resolved
to try to find a way to make it matter, or at least make sure the bishop was
irrelevant to the game for awhile.} 9. Qd1 $14 Nxe5 {[#] It was around here
that I started to think (with tongue firmly in cheek) "With lots of pawn moves,
moving the same piece multiple times in the opening, and with the kingside
undeveloped, I wonder if anyone reads or knows about Fred Reinfeld in Europe?"}
10. dxe5 {Allowing the exchange on e5 might be objectively questionable, but I
had ideas involving e2-e4, the long diagonal, and slowing Black's kingside
development. One idea in particular is that with d6 andf6 covered, Black has
two pieces that want to move to e7, but only one can go there at a time.} Ne7
11. Nd2 $6 (11. e4 $14 {immediately is more accurate.}) 11... g6 {Seven total
moves with pawns in 11 moves. That is a red flag.} 12. Nf3 Bg7 13. h4 $5 {
Not best, but a very familiar idea for anyone who has ever studied or played
the King's Indian Attack.} Nc6 14. Bf4 Qc7 {It was pretty clear that Black had
designs on winning the e5 pawn, but it is dangerous to go pawngrabbing with
one's king in the center.} 15. e4 {White needs to strike before the Black King
exits stage left (house right from the White perspective).} Rd8 {Superficially
attractive with the pin, but not best.} (15... dxe4 16. Ng5 b4 17. Re1 O-O 18.
Bxe4 $11) 16. exd5 $16 {The center becomes fluid, which is dangerous for local
royalty.} Nxe5 $6 (16... Rxd5 17. Qe2 $16) 17. Re1 $18 {[#] The Black King has
been caught out, and it is hard to find good moves for Black going forward.}
Nxf3+ (17... f6 {An ugly computer move, which would be hard for anyone over
the age of 30 to find.}) 18. Qxf3 e5 {A tactical evaluation is in order. 1)
The Black King is in the center of the board. 2) The e5 pawn is pinned to the
King for at least one more move. 3) The e5 pawn has two attackers and two
defenders, but one defender is the Black Queen, and Queens are poor defenders-
it's easy to nudge them away with inferior pieces. 4) The d4 pawn blocks the
long light diagonal, but it can move, and do so with tempo. 5) If the d4 pawn
was absent, White could seize the d-file, because he has 3 pieces covering d1.}
19. d6 $1 {A powerful intermezzo. Komodo and Stockfish both give the exclam,
which is rare for me, as I more often see punctuation with curves.} Qd7 $2 {
Unfortunately this just loses, but it is not super obvious, and the
alternatives all looked worse, especially with a ticking clock.} (19... Rxd6
20. Bxe5 O-O 21. Bxd6 Qxd6 22. Rad1 $18 {is relatively best, but still losing.}
) 20. Rxe5+ {The best way forward. With all the dark square weaknesses around
the Black kingside, it is pretty clear that White's dark square bishop is
worth more than the e1 rook.} Bxe5 {The least bad move. Superficially one
could say that Black has won the exchange, but as the g7 Bishop was worth more
than White's e5 Rook, it is probably more accurate to say that White won the
exchange here.} 21. Bxe5 {Black has no good moves here, but the next one
brings the game to a more rapid close.} O-O {It is somewhat ironic that the
Black King finally seeks shelter only to find danger.} 22. Qf6 {It is to Mr
Gromnicki's credit and character that he chose to re-enter the tournament, won
his next 4 games, and shared 1st Place with me at the end! If it were a team
tournament, I would want him on mine!} 1-0

@paul-leggett said
I forgot to mention- one of my reasons for submitting the game to the competition was that I had Komodo analyze it via the Fritz GUI, and it gave my 19th move an exclam.

That is extremely rare for me, as most of the time the computer's evaluation of my moves involves more curvy punctuation.

What happens if rook X pawn?

@sonhouse said
What happens if rook X pawn?

20. Bxe5 wins. 20. … Bxe5 21 Rxe5+ or 20. … 0-0 21. Bxd6 Qxd6 22. Rad1 with a big advantage either way. It is relatively best and what I expected when I pushed it.